


Scarce to be counted

by Hedgehog-o-Brien (Roshwen)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: And that's why (light) Pollution can fuck right off of his rooftop, Aziraphale that's who, But Crowley is proud of what he made, Gen, More head canon than actual fic, NOW WITH TOOTH ROTTING FLUFF IN CHAPTER 3, Stargazing, You know who CAN come to his rooftop?, there's most certainly no plot or anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-06-29 02:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19820656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roshwen/pseuds/Hedgehog-o-Brien
Summary: London is a great many things, but it is never dark. Except for a certain rooftop in Mayfair, where a single black deck chair and a spindly apple tree in a pot are not the weirdest things that can be found up there.





	1. Chapter 1

London is a great many things. It is large. Elegant in some places, downright shoddy in others. It is concrete and glass and steel and sound and smog and _people_ , so many many many _people,_ city swells and clueless tourists and billionaires and barely-scraping-by’s and everything in between.

Some call it the greatest city in the world. At one point, it literally was, but if it ever truly deserved that title in the metaphorical way, that’s up to you.

London is great. And vast and terrible and amazing, all in one.

But one thing London is not, is dark.

They say Paris is the city of light. But London, truly, could give Paris a run for its money and cross the finish line a mile in the lead while hollering something rude about frogs. There are lights _everywhere,_ from the gleaming billboards on Piccadilly Circus to the glittering signs of the West End and the never-ending spotlights around the hundreds of thousands of monuments and statues scattered all around the city.

It is at this point that you might want to remember that Pollution is not just about chemicals and faulty oil pipelines. It is one of their sneakier accomplishments, but they’re very proud of it nonetheless. Light pollution has slowly but surely conquered all of the civilized world and, and this was the beauty of it, _practically no one had noticed or cared._

Whenever Pollution thought of it, they got a very weird but very nice-feeling feeling somewhere deep inside.

They thought it _safer,_ even. Being cut off from the dark, being unable to look up and see a vast expense of nothing looking back at them, they found it _comforting._

Except.

There was one rooftop in London that was slightly different. It was sitting on top of a flat in Mayfair, which was owned by someone who had lived there for a _very_ long time. Long enough to pay the hefty mortgage three times over, if the owner in question was the kind of individual who could be bothered to pay mortgages.

It did not look like anything special. Other rooftops in recent years might have acquired their own little herb or vegetable garden, or, if the owners went in another direction, their own swimming pool. This rooftop had one small, spindly apple tree in a pot and a deck chair.

The deck chair was black. There was a small, rectangular table standing next to it with just enough room for, say, a pair of sunglasses to be put down on top of it.

And this rooftop, innocuous as it might look to any outsider during the day, was the only one in London (and perhaps the only one for miles around the city, because light pollution _spreads_ ) to be completely and utterly dark at night.

No one would see; no one would ever notice, not even from the outside looking in. Just as they never really saw the owner of the flat come out on to the rooftop, after a long and tiresome day of evilly wiling all cash registers to fritz out at 5pm, just during the after-office-hours-grocery-run-rush, to sink his long and lanky frame into the deck chair, take off his glasses, rub at his eyes, look up and smile.

They weren’t there to hear him whisper his customary greeting. ‘Hi there.’

They weren’t there to see his smile widen, altough never without a touch of sadness, of longing, of a pain so old it had basically become a friend by now, as hundreds of thousands, _millions_ of stars came out, one by one by one until the sky was ablaze with _real_ light. _Proper_ light. The light that had guided humanity, and the owner of the rooftop, for centuries in both literal and metaphorical sense.

Some say the stars are cold and distant and watching them does not change that. In a way, that is true.

But that still does not mean a demon shouldn’t be proud of his work.

  


  



	2. Chapter 2

‘A picnic?’ Aziraphale said, face already brightening at the prospect of scones with clotted cream and lemon curd. ‘Why, yes, of course, dear. When did you want to…’

‘Now,’ Crowley said, already at the door. ‘Are you coming?’

‘You don’t mean…’

‘When I say _now,_ angel, I usually do mean _now.’_

Aziraphale sputtered. ‘Crowley, my dear, it’s the middle of the night! Where would we even go?’

Crowley’s grin lit up the room. ‘Oh, angel. Have some faith in me for once?’

\---

London is never dark, and it is certainly never quiet. But there was still a bubble of peace surrounding the angel and the demon as they weaved their leisurely way through the nighttime crowd. Eventually, the raucous night life of Soho gave way to a less noisy, more expensive crowd, just like the bars and pubs disappeared and made place for stately city palaces, their white facades gleaming in the hazy streetlights.

‘So we _are_ going to your flat.’

‘Sort of, yeah.’

‘What do you mean _sort of._ We’re _at your front door,_ Crowley, how are we going to have a _picnic_ in your _flat_?’

Crowley turned around, hand still on the doorknob and fixing Aziraphale with a stare that no amount of sunglasses could hide. ‘Will you just… you’ll see alright? Just, come in and see, I promise it’ll be good.’

The demon’s posture was tense, the hand clenched on the doorknob so tight the knuckles were pure white.

Aziraphale sighed. ‘Alright. But there’d better be muffins.Blueberry ones.’

\---

There were no blueberry muffins.

Instead, there was darkness. Utter darkness as Aziraphale hadn’t seen since humans got around to inventing the lightbulb. The only light came from behind them, streaming out of the kitchen as he stepped out of the flat and onto the rooftop terrace.

And from above. Where hundreds of thousands, _millions_ of stars were lighting up the night sky as so many twinkling diamonds. Countless little lights hanging overhead, the universe stretching out behind them; some tiny and barely visible, others huge and almost blazing white, blue, red, all the colors She’d invented.

‘So the picnic might have been a ruse,’ came a soft, almost apologetic voice from behind. ‘Sorry.’

Aziraphale was too busy gaping at the beauty overhead, a sight he must have missed more than he thought because his eyes were stinging soo much that all the stars were starting to blur together. But then Crowley stepped closer, and the heat radiating off the demon was enough to break Aziraphale out of his trance.

‘Then why…’

Crowley shrugged. ‘Sitting here by myself didn’t… I don’t know. Felt different. Wasn’t doing it for me anymore, somehow. So I figured, I’d bring you up here and perhaps you’d… Uhm. That is to say, you might want to… if you don’t mind?’

Aziraphale was pretty sure there was a question mark dangling at the end of that flustering, but da- _blessed_ if he knew what it was that Crowley was actually asking.

The demon was looking at him, sunglasses down and yellow eyes pleading.

Aziraphale turned back around. Looked up.

And remembered.

He hadn’t known Crowley Before. There had been millions of angels, it had been impossible to know all of them. And Crowley had, understandably, never volunteered any details himself.

But there had been… clues. Indications. Little tells that, when put together, created quite a statement.

Such as the day Aziraphale had found Crowley, sitting at the back of his bookshop, completely lost in a rare first edition of Kepler’s _De Stella Nova._ He had been so utterly transfixed that he had not noticed Aziraphale standing there, and when he’d finally resurfaced, his yellow eyes seemed even brighter than usual.

Blinking against the star-studded sky above, Aziraphale breathed out. Turned back to his demon, took his hand and led them both to, credit where credit was due, the picnic blanket that was spread out next to a lonely looking apple tree in a pot.

‘I would love to, dearest.’


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘I love you.’
> 
> Aziraphale goes perfectly still.

‘I love you.’

Aziraphale goes perfectly still. Not that he was moving all that much to begin with; when you’re lying in the arms of the love of your life, on a deck chair that should not be able to support two people but somehow does, there’s not much room or, indeed, need to wriggle about (except to maybe press his nose into Crowley’s shirt just a _little_ bit because the demon, against all logic and common sense, smells absolutely heavenly).

Overhead, the star studded expanse of jet black sky is vast and endless. And perhaps that’s what set Crowley off, Aziraphale thinks, as a pair of lips brushes his forehead and a rough whisper follows: ‘God, angel. I love you.’

Star gazing always… does something to the demon. Aziraphale knows. He doesn’t know _why,_ exactly, just knows that, if they’re at it long enough (and they’ve been at it long enough a couple of times now), there will inevitably come a point where Crowley, the father of original sin and scourge of mobile network users everywhere, will turn into a puddle of mushy goo.

But this is a first.

‘Crowley, my dear. Ah.’ Aziraphale clears his throat, glad the demon can’t see his face in the darkness. ‘Do you… you know, I don’t think you’ve ever said that before.[1]’

Now it’s Crowley’s turn to go perfectly still.

‘I haven’t?’

‘No. Not once.’

‘Huh.’

A long silence follows, measured only by the thundering of Aziraphale’s unnecessary heart against his ribcage.

‘I must have.’

‘You haven’t.’

‘Come on angel, it’s been _years. Decades._ I’m _sure_ I…’

‘I know. And I’m sure you didn’t.’ Aziraphale smiles, hand wrapping around Crowley’s and squeezing gently in a silent _don’t worry, it’s alright. We’re alright._ ‘Believe me, dear one. I’d remember it if you had.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes.’

‘Should I…’ Crowley started, then hesitated. ‘Yes. Yes, I should’ve. Should’ve told you sooner. Way sooner. About… yeah. About six thousand years ago, in fact.’

Another kiss into Aziraphale’s hair, and the angel closes his eyes to keep all the love and joy that’s surging up inside him from spilling out. ‘Love you, angel. To Alpha Centauri and back.’

And Aziraphale turns, not minding the creaking protests of the poor deck chair, to catch Crowley in a kiss, slow and sweet and headier than an entire crate of Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

And _then_ , both because he is just enough of a bastard to ruin a perfect moment and also because he knows, he can _sense_ , that there’s only so much that his demon can take before he crashes and burns and swivels from slightly sappy straight around to emotionally shut off scaredy-cat, he murmurs: ‘I don’t mind, my dear. Love is patient, after all.’

‘Ack!’ Crowley flails, shooting upright and almost throwing Aziraphale bodily off the much-abused deck chair. ‘Angel! You know quoting the Scripture gives me a rash!’

‘I’m sorry, dearest,’ Aziraphale grins. He reaches up and Crowley’s glare immediately softens as he presses a kiss against the angel’s palm. ‘Come back here. Let me make it up to you.’

Crowley acquiesces, letting himself be dragged down to where Aziraphale is waiting.

‘I’ll forgive you just this once, angel.’

‘I know. I love you too.’

* * *

[1] ‘Not in as many words, anyway,’ is something Aziraphale might have added. But he didn’t. There’s some things you need to spell out sometimes, and others… not so much.


End file.
